By Arnold Jansen op de Haar

I live in a strange country. From a Dutch point of view it’s across the sea. Nearby and yet quite distant. Over here, news reporting is often an odd affair.

Not long ago, someone made the headlines because for eight hours he had sat on the roof of the Houses of Parliament. Recently, a dog was poisoned during a dog show. And then there’s the wood with the fairy doors.

The wood is called Wayford Woods and it is located in Somerset, in the west of England. The first fairy door appeared here around the millennium. Last week, the paper reported an unbridled expansion of fairy doors: 200 have appeared already, and some of the fairy houses even have curtains, and small tables and chairs.

But Wayford Woods’ trustee, Mr Acreman, is getting worried. Wonderful name, Mr Acreman. I imagine him, one morning, saying to his wife: ‘It musn’t get any dafter with these fairies. I’m going to put an end to it now.’ To the fairies, that’s what Mr Acreman meant. Afterwards, he declared he wasn’t anti-fairies, but well, it’s this rampant expansion. He sounded like Nigel Farage discussing immigrants.

Fairies speak to the imagination. I myself know a number of women who have a touch of the fairy about them. All the same, I can’t quite imagine any of them flying off on a broomstick.

The tradition in Wayford Woods is marvellous. I hoped it was a unique one. But no, there are also 30 fairy houses in the New Forest. Except that these were built under the supervision of the authorities, and this, of course, is acceptable.

Before you know it, a custom like this spreads, and as soon as this happens it’s not quite so ludic.

Think of You’ll never walk alone. This song belongs to Liverpool football club. Everyone always maintains it’s a Gerry and the Pacemakers song (1963), but it’s actually from the musical Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein (1945). The Liverpool supporters sang it for the first time on Saturday 30 November 1963, and it’s been their song ever since.

But then there are several other football clubs, at home as well as abroad, who copy it. The Feyenoord hooligans may well have been singing it when they tried to wreck the centre of Rome recently. Oh, yes, and the word ‘hooligan’ can be traced back, so they think, to Patrick Hoolihan (or Hooligan), an Irish bouncer and thief, who lived in London at the end of the nineteenth century.

Many customs are not very original. So now I’m getting worried that the fairies will spread like hooligans. It’s hard to tell.

I’m in favour of original football songs, which are at least unique to a country and can’t be exported.

The song about Piet Hein (his name is small, his deeds are great) springs to mind – the Dutch hero of the seas (pirate and hooligan of the seven seas) who in 1628 conquered the Spanish silver fleet during the battle of the Bay of Matanzas (Cuba). If only for these lines:

He has won, won, the Silver Fleet.
He has won the Silver Fleet. (2x)

Another item in the papers over here is from Melbourne, Australia. Over here, they like to report on the Commonwealth. In other words: the entire Commonwealth is much nearer than the Netherlands (and their whole silver fleet). 

They have put 70,000 trees on a map in Melbourne. People can email these trees, in order to make people aware of their green environment. The great thing is: the trees email you back.

I suspect that shortly you’ll be able to email a tree near you. Because when something becomes popular … (I repeat myself.)

Maybe this is an idea for Wayford Woods: allowing trees to be emailed, or the fairies. I predict it will be a great success.

So I no longer have to talk to the trees on the green opposite, where I smoke my cigars. I can simply email them: ‘England is a completely mad country. Can I be your fairy? Or, if it suits you, a goblin.’

© Arnold Jansen op de Haar
© Translation Holland Park Press